Australia, it’s time to debate age verification for porn

The innocence of many childhoods has been prematurely ended by pornography’s pervasive online accessibility and there are growing calls for internet restrictions to protect young people from further harm.

What was seen as an integral part of growing up has been turned into a cash cow by the unregulated multibillion-dollar online adult industry which, as a major influencer for increasing numbers of teenagers, has usurped the role once given to parents, schools, and religion in shaping sexual attitudes. It is an entirely unacceptable situation for which a solution must be found.

Today, nearly half (48 per cent) of Australian teenage boys have seen pornography by the age of 13 and nearly half (48 per cent) of teenage girls by 15. Some dispute a causal link between adolescents viewing pornography and real-life harm, but the two-part series by the Herald’s chief reporter Jordan Baker reveals research in Australia and overseas suggests a mounting consensus among academics, and health and legal workers that, for some teens, too inexperienced and immature to understand the difference between reality and fantasy, and too nervous about peer disapproval to resist, easy access to violent porn is normalising acts that in the hands of fumbling teenagers can be dangerous and traumatising.

While juvenile sexual assault rates have been stable for the past 10 years, and there is no data on the types of sexual assault allegations coming before the NSW Children’s Court, the president of the court, Nell Skinner, said the nature of the allegations she had dealt with had changed “significantly” over the course of her 25-year career. “Over recent years I have seen more matters in court where complainants give evidence of sexual assaults through oral sex, anal sex and choking. I believe this evidence represents changes in the behaviour of adolescents due to the accessibility of pornography and the incidental sex education that flows from exposure to pornography,” she said.

Another NSW Health report found exposure to pornography was one of the four common factors behind adolescent problematic or harmful sexual behaviours. The others are experiences of abuse, trauma and gender expectations. “There needs to be a specific focus on online safety and preventing early exposure to pornography,” the report said.

The eSafety Commission has produced a report on how Australia could introduce an age verification road map to the federal government. Age restriction can range from government-issued “certificates” to technology that scans a user’s facial characteristics to assess their age. The government is due to respond soon.

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There are similar moves overseas. France is pushing ahead with a porn passport. The United Kingdom is still working on its years-long attempt at an “age-gating” system. Several states in the US are enacting their own versions. Earlier this month, Pornhub retaliated in one US state by blocking its content to all users.

The digital age has given us a culture so awash in violent porn that even many who fought for the liberalisation of language, books and film a generation ago could never have envisaged. The biggest players are shadowy aggregator sites, which, using the US law relied upon by Facebook, argue they are platforms, not publishers. The world’s top three adult sites attract 5.81 billion visits a month, almost twice as popular as Facebook.